Millions of golfers throughout the world use a golf bag to contain, display and transports their golf clubs. With a relatively few exceptions, clubs are always transported around a course, and from the home to the course, in a golf bag. The bags come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes but are ordinarily characterized as tubes having an open end to receive the shafts of the golf clubs, with the heads protruding outward for identification, selection and removal by the golfer, or the designated representative, such as a caddie.
Most golf bags are intended, at least nominally, to be carried on the shoulder of the golfer or caddie, at least part of the time. Even those bags which are specifically intended for use with a cart device, such as Applicant's own invention, the Anacart.RTM. bag described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,752, are also intended to be at least marginally comfortable when carried by the shoulder strap. Although some bags are constructed for almost no shoulder carrying, such as those which are integrally constructed with wheel members, most have at least some thought and purpose directed at the comfort of the carrier, as well as the structural integrity of the resulting bag.
Golf bags have been constructed of a wide variety of materials and in a plethora of configurations. Traditional top of the line bags have been made of leather or hide from exotic animals while low end bags have been constructed of canvas and, more recently, of waterproof materials such as vinyl and synthetic fabrics such as nylon. These materials have shared the characteristics of resistance to tearing and weather and at least some pliability to provide comfort. Recently, in some cases, rigid materials such as hard plastics have been used to construct golf bags. There are even some persons who use metal, wooden or plastic open frames to carry clubs, with no exterior shell at all.
If it is assumed that the golf bag is to have a shell portion and is to be carried on the shoulder at least a part of the time, it is imperative to consider the effect of the shape and the material of the bag as these factors affect the comfort of the person doing the carrying. For this reason a great deal of inventive effort has gone into the particular shapes utilized, especially in relation to the body shape of the human being. Further, substantial effort has gone into selecting appropriate degrees of pliability and surface characteristics of the selected exterior shell material to provide comfort as well as structural integrity. Of course, durability, appearance, manufacturing ease and economics are also important.
A technique which has been utilized to give comfortable and attractive surface characteristics while maintaining good structural integrity has been to use interior reinforcing rods (such as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,752, discussed above, or to utilize a semi-rigid interior shell, as shown in the inventor's prior U.S. Pat. No. 33,203, and embodied in the Eclipse.RTM. golf Bag distributed by Sun Mountain Sports of Missoula, Montana. These methods have limitations in that they limit the bag shape somewhat to easily formed shapes and also can be less than ideally comfortable to the user, especially over protracted carrying conditions, or when the straps are not properly adjusted for the user's body shape.
There always remains room for innovations in the comfort, aesthetic appeal, structural integrity, volume to weight ratio, and durability of the golf bag. Golfers continually demand improvements and stylistic changes. The ability to construct functional golf bags with lessened limitations on specific shapes and materials is therefore a significant goal.
However, none of the prior art construction methods have successfully solved all the problems relating to flexibility of shape selection, semi-rigid structural integrity combined with comfortable pliability, exterior appearance and maintenance and ease and economy of manufacture.